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philliamwrites · 2 years

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SWYAATL 13: The Horror and the Wild

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x fem! Reader

Warnings: defence against an animal (no worries, the animal doesn’t get hurt too bad, definitely doesn’t die), injury, animal attack, self-suturing

Summary: You scramble for your knife, digging through the snow until your fingers grasp the hilt. Pulling yourself up to your knees has never been this difficult, but thanks to the rigorous training Shadis has put you under after all those years, you stand on shaking knees, determined that you’ll see this through to the end. You’ll make your place in this world. You’ll fight for it, no matter who the opponent is. You’ll burn so bright you’ll blind them all—you’ll fight for yourself, and if that little, crying girl from five years ago screams for help, you’ll take her small hand and never let go, and you whisper to her “You are no longer a helpless child, you are the horror and the wild, and all the stones and kings of old will hear us screaming at the cold.”

Notes: [01] || 12 | 14

Words: 9.6k

A/N: ahhhh i'm sorry it took me so long, guys!! there might not be an update schedule from here on out because my apprenticeship starts next week and i'm not sure how consistent i'll be able to work on the story, so i'll allow myself some beathing room. whenever updates happen, they'll still be on sunday, so if you're into this story, i highly recommend you get on the taglist or bookmark this story on ao3

THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPENED TOO!!! A kind reader on ao3 made fanart of Eren and Reader, please please check it out here!!

13: The Horror and the Wild

Pain sears through you as those teeth sink into your arm, and you scream as the muscle tears. The wolf has bitten through the fabric of your coat and has latched its jaw around your arm, shaking its head violently. It feels as if it is about to rip your arm from its socket.

Screams tear from your throat, raw and stomach churning, long wails that don’t sound human—they sound as if they belong to a dying animal. You try to kick the wolf off, but its weight is an unmovable boulder on top of you, pinning you to the cold, hard ground. His hind claws dig into your coat as it thrashes on top of you.

Nausea rolls through you at the searing pain in your arm, but it’s nothing compared to the defeated ache in your chest.

This is it, you’re sure of it. This is where you die. Where only the rules of nature reign; the cycle of the strong devouring the weak, and who are you but a small speck of dirt? But even then … you deserve your place here. Small and insignificant as you might appear in the eyes of the vast universe, you were born into this world. You haven’t even seen half of it, and are expected to let it end here?

Didn’t you promise yourself to never become prey again?

The knife has slipped from your numb fingers during the attack, and now you let your hand, palms slick from sweat, roam over the frozen ground in search of anything you might use as a weapon. Your gloved fingers curl around something hard and you don’t think about it, you bring it hard over the wolf’s head; one, two, three times. It yelps, loosening its teeth around your arm just enough for you to yank it free from death’s sharp jaws. Black dots dance before your eyes, blurring your vision as you feel the blood seep from the wound, the pain unlike anything you have ever felt before.

Before the beast can latch its fangs around you once more to finish you off for good, you swing your uninjured arm again. Desperation is your only source of strength, reliable in its rawness for your one desire: to survive. To live. Another yelp sounds from the wolf as you manage to hit its eye and it jumps back—off you—shaking its head as if to drive away the pain.

You scramble for your knife, digging through the snow until your fingers grasp the hilt. Pulling yourself up to your knees has never been this difficult, but thanks to the rigorous training Shadis has put you under after all those years, you stand on shaking knees, determined that you’ll see this through to the end.

You’ll make your place in this world.

You’ll fight for it, no matter who the opponent is.

You’ll burn so bright you’ll blind them all—you’ll fight for yourself, and if that little, crying girl from five years ago screams for help, you’ll take her small hand and never let go, and you whisper to her “You are no longer a helpless child, you are the horror and the wild, and all the stones and kings of old will hear us screaming at the cold.”

You’ll fight for those you want to protect; you couldn’t save Emil five years ago, but you can save Eren now. You scream this determination at the beast until you feel as if your throat is tearing, and as you howl, the wolf howls with you, and for a moment you imagine something flashes in its eyes—those glowing embers flicker to a colour as pale as the snow.

Suddenly it charges, but not towards you. It bolts into a different direction, back into the woods. Its pack startles in confusion. They hesitate only briefly, exchanging confused glances, before they dash after their leader and are swallowed by the shades of the woods.

Standing frozen, only your chest moves rapidly as you try to control your breathing. The snapping of twigs and brush of fur against bark grows quieter until they’ve completely disappeared. One, two, three more seconds pass. The sudden silence is deafening.

You only wake from your daze when warm liquid pools at your fingertips inside your gloves. A quick, shaky glance to your injured arm tells you it is even worse than it feels—you can see the open flesh under the fabric of clothes, the crimson that spills onto the snow. Strangely, it looks beautiful as it coats the pure, impeccable white. Somewhere, you have read that God’s favourite colour is red. The picture of your blood upon the snow is mesmerising, and for a moment you are aware that the world stands still and holds its breath.

It feels like a dream—moments before everything was moving so fast, and now there lies a silence upon everything as though nature has never once known the violence she is housing in her sublime stillness. She gives and she takes, and she lets her children fight their own battles. The wolves, the bushes, the threes—they deny themselves nothing that makes them grow. No prey, no rainfall, no sunshine. No blood upon the snow.

The rush of adrenaline still pumps strong through your body, making your heart beat in your throat. There is no chance you’ll survive this if you stay outside. You trudge back to Eren, every step as hard and strenuous as if you are moving through a swamp. The pain slowly grows unbearable, but you can’t start worrying about a possible broken bone or nerve damage now without any chance to treat the wound out in the open like that. If those wolves decide to come back … you don’t allow yourself to think about it.

Eren and your backpack are where you have left them. He’s still unconscious. You can see the plums of breath form in front of his face, but this relief barely soothes the deep, raging waters of your worries. You’d have to check about his fever later, for now you have to figure out how to carry him. With the injury, your left arm is pretty much useless and you doubt you’ll be able to carry both backpack and Eren with your right side only. Cradling your injured arm close to your chest as if it is the broken wing of a small bird, you go through your backpack and find rope at the bottom.

Fastening it around Eren is no easy task with only one hand while running out of time. The sun descends rapidly behind the trees. Shadows grow larger and larger, looming over you. You imagine hearing the snap of ice and twigs under heavy, strong paws in the distance, and try to hurry up, but the rope slips from your wet gloves from time to time and feeds your fear. The pain has also grown into a steady, constant ache that makes thinking clearly almost impossible.

You bite back a groan of frustration at the sudden rush of helplessness that threatens to swallow you. Just for a moment, you close your eyes and take deep, ice-cold breaths, counting to ten slowly.

This isn’t Shiganshina. This isn’t five years ago when you were too small to do anything. You are not helpless, and you can save yourself and Eren. You have trained for this. You take your doubt, ball it up, crush it into a fuel you can use.

When you open your eyes, the world seems a little clearer. If you keep close to the mountain’s side, you should find caverns that will suffice as shelter for the night. You can think about a heat source and food later.

With Eren finally secured and the ropes thrown over your right shoulder, you make your way along the cliffside, dragging Eren after you. Eyes open to any dips and holes and black openings, a few shadows trick you now that the sun has disappeared and nothing but the quickly fading, bright stripe at the horizon lights your way. The march seems endless, the cold eating away at you. How easy it would be to just lie down, let the snowflakes drape you in a soft blanket. After what you’ve just been through, you deserve a break.

You shake your head against those intrusive thoughts, willing them out of your mind. Instead, you focus on something more heartening, something easy and joyful—and of all things, Connie’s cadence call echoes in your head. Birdy, birdy in the sky / Dropped a whitewash in my eyes / I’m no wimp, I won’t cry, I’m just glad that cows don’t fly.

Over and over again, you sing it, mindlessly, thinking of Connie and Sasha, and Jean and Marco, and Mina and Mikasa and Armin, and you hope wherever they are, they have it warm; have their bellies filled with food. You’d hate for them to go sick with worry—another reason to make it back to your squad soon.

Lost in thought, you almost walk past the small entrance to a cavern. It doesn’t carve too deep into the mountain, just enough to shield you from the cold and the snowfall. You drag Eren to the furthest corner away from the gaping maw, but don’t allow yourself a minute to rest. You know as soon as you lie down, you won’t get up and heat is now imperative to make it through the night. Out again you go to collect firewood from dry, barren branches—something that would be done quickly under different circumstances, but now it almost takes you double the time as you fight your exhaustion and the encroaching faintness that lurks dangerously and lethal as the wolves. Your only incentive is that without you and the fire, Eren probably won’t make it through the night.

You make it back to the cave just in time as another snowstorm hits the forest. The fire is a pathetic little thing barely capable of driving off the shadows in the corners of the cave but it is enough for now.

It took almost thirty minutes to get out of your grimy, wet coat. The blood has seeped through the fabric, and most of your thermo-undershirt still sticks to the torn flesh. You clean and disinfect, but then the worst part comes: suturing the wound. All tools lie before you: a disinfectant needle, some thread, bandages, and most importantly, your hat to bite onto something for relief.

The first stitch is the hardest. Poking through skin is nothing like embroidering silk. Skin is thicker, more slippery, more tender. Your stomach churns at the sight of the needle breaking through the layer, for the blood it draws and you have to take deep, aggravating breaths so you wouldn’t faint; wouldn’t scream. The fuzzy fabric between your teeth reminds you of a wet dog’s pelt, but it muffles all sound, all gruffs and moans and you torture yourself through every agonizing stitch, blink away the white dots that whirl through your field of vision.

When you’re finally done after what feels like an eternity, it doesn’t look pretty at all. Skin overlaps in jagged, ugly folds, blood seeps from the puncture wounds. But this will mean you’ll survive through the night, and that is all that matters. You bandage your arm—out of sight, out of mind, were it only that easy—and retreat to Eren to check on him. His face isn’t hot as before, the fever must have receded a little, which hopefully means that he’ll wake up soon enough.

Even though you feel the small fire’s warmth lick at your back, it isn’t enough to fully warm you, and you come to a decision pretty quickly. You unbutton Eren’s coat with still shaking fingers—what a miracle how calm they were during the suturing—and lie right next to Eren, chest to chest so the coat falls close behind you. With the fever gone, he was still pleasantly warm, and for the first time you could feel yourself not shaking and shuddering to your very core. For the first time after the fall, after losing your company, you feel safe and secure, tugged against Eren’s chest. He has such a distinctive smell as well: like earth and forests and fresh laundry hanging outside in the sun to dry. Very pleasant.

After everything, you finally find rest to the feeling of Eren’s strong, beating heart.

It is nearly pitch black when you awake, feeling strong, warm arms having wound around you. One is curled around your waist, the other clinging to your upper body. Eren is hiding his face in your hair, which can’t be the most pleasant feeling or smell as you’ve been up and around for so many hours in the snow and dirt, but comfort is easy to relinquish when it means that you both are warm. You feel his hot breath at the back of your head and neck. There’s little to complain about. Except his hand slowly moving upwards, his thumb drawing dangerously close to the bottom mound of your left breast. It’s funny. Why is it so funny?

You make a faint sound that is nothing like the giggle you meant it to be, and turn so you’re on your back, able to look up at Eren’s face. He stirs awake at the movement, and blinks, his face all puffy and swollen from all the sleep. Your neck is aching, your whole body feels as though it is on fire, your mouth as dry as parchment. “Wow,” you say. “You look like shit.”

Now, Eren jerks fully awake. He props himself up on one arm, looking down at himself, and there’s a look of confusion and surprise on his face.

“How … why’s there blood?” he rasps. His deep, scratchy voice sends a shiver down your spine, and you huddle closer against him.

For someone looking this cute, he can be pretty stupid. “It’s not your blood, dummy,” you mumble, too drowsy to make an effort speaking clearly. “Way to make it about yourself.”

Eren hoists himself up—you give a little whine at the sudden distance, the cold rushing in—and inspects your bandaged arm, the scratches on your face and neck. “What—” is all he manages, before something in your face catches his attention. He cups your cheeks with his broad, warm hands. His breath quickens. “Shit, you’re burning up.”

You giggle, and nuzzle into his open palm. “Did you just admit I’m hot?”

“Come on, keep it together. We have to get back to camp.”

“You’re pretty hot yourself, you know?”

Eren gives you a long, silent look. He moves to stand up, but you snatch the hem of his shirt, trying to pull him back beside you. There’s no rush to leave, it’s night anyway. You two should go back to sleep. “Stay, it’s cold.”

“Whatever got you, it got you good, and now you’re running a fever from the infection.” Eren shook your hand off and dragged your backpack over to him, going through its contents until he found the water flask. “We have to get back and give you penicillin.”

A sudden flash of clarity brightens your muddled mind for a moment after his words. You nodded, very gravely “Okay.” And then, staring at Eren seriously, you added, “I don’t want to die, Eren.”

“You won’t die.” He turns back to you, but his eyes are fixed on the ground. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s not very reassuring.” You smile a little when he sends you a glare. It immediately softens though, as you start coughing, your voice rougher than parchment. He scoots closer to you, and once he’s in reach, you pull him back against you.

“Here, drink.”

You turn your head away. Even that is too much effort, and you groan weakly, trying to bury your face into something soft and warm. It moves under you and you mumble an incoherent, weak protest.

“Stop being so stubborn,” Eren mumbles. You don’t understand why he’s so annoyed, but find it funny nonetheless. Everything seems so funny right now, like a big joke that nobody but you is on.

A broad, warm hand catches your jaw and makes you hold still. You blink up at Eren but his face blurs and fades away into darkness whenever you close your eyes. A rough thumb sweeps over your bottom lip. The sensation is foreign, tickling. Feels nice.

“Come on, open up.” The voice is soothing. Calming. You can trust this person. “Work with me here, [Name].”

Now they’re asking you to do something? Not a chance. You try to turn your head away, but the grip around your jaw tightens.

There’s a quiet growl of frustration. Fingers dig into your cheek, the thumb dips into your mouth and draws it open. You imagine batting these hands away, but you’re too weak to move even a muscle.

Cool liquid spills over your lips. Everything moves into sudden focus and you stare up at Eren, locking eyes with him. His gaze is intense, focusing on the task. He’s careful nothing spills, keeping your head in place. “Like that,” he mumbles. “Swallow.”

There’s a joke there, but you’re too drowsy to use words. You just keep looking at Eren, the only constant anchor in a world that keeps fading in and out. His eyes are unfathomably dark as he watches your throat work every time you swallow.

When you’re sufficiently hydrated, he removes the flask from your lips but keeps his hand cupped carefully around your cheek. Tenderly, almost. His hands are still on you, the heat of them burning through the cold inside you. He looks younger somehow, more vulnerable—and his eyes, too, are vulnerable, open like a door. The way he is looking at you, you would not have thought Eren could, or would, look at anyone like that.

He brushes a stray droplet of water on the corner of your mouth away with his thumb. You hear the smile in his voice before exhaustion pulls you back into the darkness. “Good girl.”

❀❀❀

You don’t remember what the fight was about.

It could have been anything, really. Maybe he’d made a joke you didn’t like, or you had spent an afternoon with Marianne and the others even though Emil asked you not to see them anymore after what had happened with the bird.

The only feeling you remember from that day is the sullen justice of a child demanding its rights—and if the price you had to pay was not talking or seeing Emil for a whole day, then you’d pay it.

How maddeningly boring that day was. Without Emil to race against, play with, share which flowers you picked from the small, hidden gardens between the copper-stone buildings, all you did was hang around your home. The books lining the shelves in your mother’s study were uneventful chronicles compared to the extraordinary stories Emil always came up with: stories about little princes travelling among the stars and missing their dear roses; of talking flowers that would repeat the last words they’d heard from travellers on their way to flying ships that would carry them over massive bodies of water; of a ploughman facing Death himself in hopes to plead for another chance his deceased wife might get at life and prevailing over that wicked wraith in such a grand victory that even the king noticed, granting them unspeakable riches.

There was never a dull day with Emil, and just this one day apart from him had you already missing him with a ferocity as if someone had weeded mercilessly from your heart’s garden the lithesome flower of your joy.

Your mother laughed. “The lithesome flower of your joy? Where did you learn all these words?”

You ignored her making fun of such a serious matter. “We’ll make up once I apologise. I’ll do that first thing in the morning, and everything will be well again.”

“If you say so.” Your mother smiled that secretive smile she’d save for your father when they wordlessly communicated about something regarding you. “I have to admit that I’m not used to seeing you two not together, thinking about some new mischief.”

“When have we ever misbehaved?” you asked, looking up from your colouring book to where your mother sat huddled in thick blankets in the wide armchair before the fireplace. She paused her knitting and gave you a seldom serious look that lasted a couple uncomfortable seconds. “Right,” you said, thinking back to Marianne’s cries, the blood trickling down her temple and Emil’s slow, lazy smile as he juggled stones in his hand.

Your mother sighed, and resumed knitting a new pair of socks for Jean as a gift. “It’s good that you two are looking out for each other,” she conceded. “But sometimes it’s better to walk away from a fight than jumping right into it.”

You nod because you’d learnt in situations like these, it was easier to agree with her than trying to reason why it had been necessary Emil did what he’d done. There’s only the quiet, calming cackling of the fire when you two return to your tasks. You were trying to decide which hue of blue to use for the sky when hard knocks came from the front door. Visitors at a time like this, after supper, were rare. You watched your mother stand and slide the blankets off her shoulders. In the hallway, your father was already waiting, having returned from his attic study where neither you nor your mother were allowed to disturb him whenever he retreated for his nightly studies.

They turned to the door and opened it a tiny crack. It had gotten much colder already, but no snowfall was expected that night and for once the starry sky showed its splendour in a patchwork of sparkling miracle and infinite wonder. A gust of icy wind stole through that gap, tearing at the fire.

From where you perched in front of the fireplace, you could hear Auntie Anne’s voice, carrying a tone of urgency you usually didn’t hear, and your mother and father’s quiet answers. Crawling over the wooden floor, warmed from the fire, you peeked around the corner. Annie Gruender, clad in her heavy wool coat and hat pulled low over her eyes, stood in the entrance, her bare hands knit tightly into the fabric of her coat. In her hurry, she didn’t put on gloves, and now her pale fingers trembled.

“But it’s night already…” Her voice seemed strangely raw, as if she was only moments away from breaking down and collapsing under an invisible weight she was carrying. You had always wondered in secret. Both Emil’s parents had ebony-black hair and warm, chestnut-brown eyes. Sometimes when all three visited the town and you’d see them, it was like looking at chessboard pieces that had come to life, Emil the little white Knight between a King and his Queen. But now, the way Anne stood hunching within the door frame, so small and vulnerable, she looked nothing like a mighty monarch.

“I’m sure he’s still out playing and just forgot the time,” your father tried to reason. He was cleaning his glasses with the tail end of his shirt. Sometimes, you’d notice his finger tips not strained inky-blue, but with a strange black powder leaving smudges on his cheekbones whenever he’d adjust his glasses or whatever surface he’d touch.

“But [Name]…,” Anne said, and stopped abruptly, her mouth hanging open, as if she had been slapped in the face mid sentence when she saw you crouching by the corner to the living quarters. She blanched as if she’d seen a ghost. She knocked your father aside, ignoring his protest, and crossed the small hallway until she fell to her knees before you. When her hands grabbed your shoulders, it was the first time ever that you felt a little scared of her. “Where is Emil?” she asked, her words stepping on each other’s heels in their haste. “Weren’t you supposed to be with him? You always play together, where is he? Where have you two been—”

“Hey.” Already, your father is by Anne’s side, prying her hands from your body. “She’s been inside all day. Emil wasn’t here.”

Anne’s face went blank with surprise. “But—,” she began, looking at you as if she didn’t quite understand what was going on. “You two are never—”

“What’s wrong?” you asked. “Did something happen?”

“Anne—,” your father started, reaching for her arm to pull her away, but she quickly side stepped him.

“Emil hasn’t come home yet,” she said, very quietly. “It’s dark and cold already, and he still hasn’t come home.”

You looked up at her with a mute expression of horror. Suddenly, it felt as though one of the only fixed points in your future was suddenly knocked off the map and your whole world struggled to recalibrate around it. When you jumped to your feet, you almost knocked your head against Anne’s chin. “We have to find him!”

“[Name]—”

You ignored your father and darted into the hallway where you tried reaching for your coat hanging on the rack but were still too small to get it. Tears pricked at your eyes, but they were not as sharp as the ugly, dark feeling of terror that threatened to choke you. If something had happened to Emil, then your last moments would be those of fighting and you couldn’t have that. You didn’t think your heart could mend a pain like that.

Big hands scooped you up and carried you back into the living room, pressing your small, shaking frame against a warm, broad chest. You didn’t notice how much you were shaking, with the front door still open. Your father placed you before the fireplace once more, cupping your cheeks.

“Listen, we will go and search for him, but you have to stay here, okay?” He held your gaze, his face as calm as the statue of a saint in a cathedral. Behind him, you noticed your mother and Anne getting ready to leave, your mother putting her scarf on and conversing in low mumbles. “Hey, [Name].” Your father nudged your chin gently, drawing your attention back to him. “I promise we’ll find him. But you have to stay here and leave it to us, okay? Don’t go out looking for him.”

“Okay.” You stared at him, at his kind eyes, surrounded by laughter lines, and didn’t dare to blink in fear he would immediately know what you were up to. “I’ll stay here.”

He nodded, and ruffled your hair before heading back to the entrance hallway to join your mother and Anne. The door fell shut behind them as they hurried into the cold. Their shadows blended into the darkness as they passed the window—you couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but judging from where they moved to, it was towards the inner gates of Shiganshina.

Which was all wrong. Emil didn’t like Shiganshina; didn’t like the Walls surrounding him in all directions. He hated feeling small and cooped up like an animal ready for slaughter.

Quickly, you hurried over and threw one of your father’s coats over your small shoulders, dragging the tail end behind you over the icy gateway leading up to your house as you emerged into the chilly night.

The way down to the meadow where you always play has turned into a white landscape. Snow crystals glitter from the light of dimly lit porches and gas lamps you passed. Within minutes, your slippers had turned soggy. The fuzzy fabric wasn’t nearly enough to keep the cold away, making your toes go numb. In your hurry to reach your favourite spot, you climbed over the fence, flinching from the sharp cold shooting up from your fingers to your arms. You barely register losing a slipper as you wade through the snow, limbs going numb from the cold but your mind still focused sharply on the task ahead.

The river stretched like a silver line before you, the moon a blurry sphere on its surface. Your favourite tree, wearing the most sublime dress of green during spring and summer, was nothing more than a hollow memory, naked and stark like a long-forgotten scarecrow meant to scare off people and make them return to their safe, warm houses.

You didn’t find Emil at first glance. He wasn’t cowering under the tree’s rigid, claw-like branches, and he wasn’t where usually all your favourite flowers bloomed during spring, sitting in a circle of all the flowers in love with him. That meant there was only one place where he could be hiding. The thought made your legs grow weak as the familiar fear of losing someone you love churned within you, carved into your bones from the memory of finding your poor little pet in a side road, blood pouring from bullet wounds, her empty blue eyes staring vacantly up into the grey, sunless sky.

If you were to lose Emil, too … you don’t think your heart could take that.

Down to the riverbank you climbed, every step more treacherous than the next as you slipped, fell, and felt the soles of your feet cut open by the slick, sharp ice under you, leaving behind a bloody footprint in the unblemished, white snow. White was a beautiful colour. The colour of silence, and rest and emptiness. But that pure, untouched beauty was exactly the reason to underestimate it, until one found themselves in a killing blizzard. Children had been warned to stay away from the river countless and countless times after the ice had broken beneath Jimmy’s feet and he had drowned on a treacherously peaceful late-afternoon when the sun traced its bright, golden beams over the snow, leaving the roads and snow-covered roofs glittering like the brilliant night sky.

You didn’t dare to imagine the same thing happening to Emil, his small body sinking to the river bed with nothing but the black slate of ice stretching above him as he was gradually running out of air. A chill colder than the December air went through you and you shuddered hard. There was only one way to find out.

Just when you were about to take the first step onto the frozen river, a voice rang out, calling your name. You turned toward it, and saw a grey silhouette perched under a slope.

He looked like a ghost under the silvery moonlight, a study of white in a colourless world that threatened to swallow him whole. Emil was paler than usual, and shaking so hard that you could hear his teeth chattering from where you stood. Your heart went wild at the sight of him—not just a little flip-flop, but a full-on tumble down a hill that never ended.

He stared up at you as you approached, and of all the things you could say—shout at him in anger how much he had worried his parents and you, how stupid he was to have gone out wearing nothing but a loose shirt and pants—now all that you wanted to tell him was, “I found you.”

Emil blinked slowly as if he was still in a daze—as if maybe your sudden appearance was nothing but ice spirits playing a trick on his mind. Slowly, he lifted his hand, and you, you grasped it and held it and warmed it with your skin, with your breath that came out in tiny white clouds as you tried to breathe life back into his fingers.

“What are you doing here?” Emil asked very quietly, sitting unmoving in a little alcove of snow he’s dug for himself. He had this voice, the one you knew from your father whenever he held a lecture ready for you after you’ve misbehaved.

“Auntie Anne came over and told us you were missing. Have you been sitting here since …” since our fight? you wanted to know, but maybe that was too much to ask for. You wouldn’t be able to look at yourself in a mirror if you were somehow at fault.

“I just needed some time to think … and be outside,” he said slowly, and turned his head to look back out at the frozen river. “It seems I have forgotten the time.”

“You would have frozen to death,” you said, and this time the accusation in your voice rang clearly. Emil looked back up at you. There was a funny look on his face, as though you had said something he had not thought of. “For someone as smart as you, sometimes you’re really stupid, you know?”

“I would have been home by now, but unfortunately …” He lowered his gaze. Your eyes followed, and found Emil’s foot. He had taken off his shoe, and where his wool sock ended, you saw the skin was red and swollen. “I slipped. I hoped the snow would cushion the fall, but…”

You made a little “Oh” sound, and crouched down to get a better look. You assumed the bone was broken, otherwise he would have somehow made his way up the meadow where he could shout for help.

“If Mother is out looking for me, that must mean Father is at home, waiting for when I return,” Emil said. “Go to him, and tell him where I am. He’ll carry me back home.”

You stared at him in disbelief, and Emil had the gall to laugh at your expression. “Don’t worry. It’s not like I can go anywhere.”

You shook your head, already slipping off the heavy coat from your shoulders. “It’s not about that,” you said, and threw it over Emil’s small form. He was swallowed whole, and had to fight through layers of wool until his silver head popped free. When he saw you crouching before him, your back to his front, he chuckled.

“I’m too heavy for you to carry,” he said, not unkindly. “And you’ve already hurt yourself looking for me.”

“And if we stay out here and continue arguing, they’ll have to use an ice pick to get us out tomorrow.” You were already beginning to shake. “I found you, and I’ll bring you back home.”

“You keep doing that,” Emil noticed, and at the strange tone in his voice, you glanced at him over your shoulder. He looked at you as if he was seeing you for the very first time. “You keep finding me, in the strangest places, at the strangest times.”

You didn’t think there was anything spectacular about finding him at one of his favourite places. Maybe he had hit his head as well when he had tumbled from that hill, and didn’t know what he was saying.

“And even now, you’re out here,” Emil continued. “Cold and hurt, and you refuse to leave me alone. I’d understand if you’d begin to hate me—”

“I could never hate you.”

He smiled, as if he knew that, of course, you would say that, and he had expected it. He had planned for it to be the absolution to what, you did not know, and just with those little words, he could rebuild brick by brick whatever he had lost that made him say such things.

Your fingers brushed his, both colder than icicles. If you held them long enough, maybe you could press the fire of your conviction into them and warm them.

“If that’s what worries you, then I’ll promise I’ll find you, no matter where, Emil,” you swore, and intertwined your pinkies together.

Emil blinked. He looked from your locked hands to your face, searching for the lie; the snare that would capture his trust and shred it to bits once he laid it bare.

You let him judge you. Somehow you had to let him know that love was worth running to, not away from it. If you never let go of his hand, you can keep Emil safe from all the dark things that waited in the corners and shadows of the world.

After what felt like an eternity, Emil finally returned the squeeze around your pinky. He had lowered his head as if in prayer, and you could see the thick curtain of his long, pale eyelashes flutter for a brief moment. Even in the pale moonlight, you saw his cheeks had turned red.

“Mizpah,” he said quietly—the exhale of a word barely visible in the cold winter night. He did something that surprised you then, and took your hand, turning it over. You looked down at it, at your bitten fingernails, at the still-healing punctures along the side of your fingers from sewing.

He kissed the back of it, just a light touch of his mouth, and his hair—as soft and light as silk—brushed your wrist as he lowered his head. You felt a shock go through you, strong enough to startle you, and you perched speechless as he straightened and stood regal before you, his mouth curving into a smile.

You blinked at him, a little dazed. “What?”

“The very first people who were brave enough to venture outside the Walls a hundred years ago used to say this,” he explained. “It is a reference from a time before the Walls. When hunters only feared the wolves and coyotes in the woods, and knew they would return home. ‘And Mizpah, for he said, the Progenitor Gods watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another.’”

“I’ve … I’ve never heard of that before.” It sounded magical. As if it belonged to a long forgotten time.

Emil smiled. He put his arms around you, and allowed his body to fall against yours. His warm breath grazed your cold cheeks when he said, “My grandfather has the most curious notes on life before the Walls. Half of them sound like a madman’s fever dream, and others … you will tell me if you need a break, won’t you?”

You were barely up the hill when already, Emil’s weight slowed you down enough that every step through the snow shot painful needle-stabs up your thighs. “The road … isn’t that far anymore,” you said between gritted teeth, taking deep breaths from an air so cold it felt like sharp knives stabbed through your lungs.

For most of the time, you tried to banish any thought about how cold you were, how much your legs hurt, and instead tried to focus entirely on Emil’s calm voice and his honey-sweet promises of hot chocolate and your favourite fuzzy blanket once you were back at his place.

When Her Inflorescence finally emerged from the black-tipped forest of countless neighbour’s houses, relief washed all the worries from your mind, giving you the last bit of strength to make it right to the front door.

James, who had been waiting for news or Emil’s return, opened the door. He looked as if the events of the last hours had aged him tremendously. He scooped Emil up effortlessly and carried him back inside the house. All the way inside, you heard him fussing around and lecturing Emil. It all took maybe five minutes until he returned and swept past you like a thunderstorm, throwing on your father’s coat that spilt before you like a curtain. He stopped for only a moment—to cup your hands gently, to lift them up to his mouth just like Emil did before.

“You are the bravest girl I know,” he said, choking on tears, “and still, that was very, very stupid.”

Just like he promised, it took a little under an hour for James to return, Annie and the doctor by his side. They shook off freshly fallen snow from their shoulders, and the doctor took off his hat, revealing a lean, slender face that seemed a little lost behind the big, round glasses he was wearing. While Emil’s parents were arguing quietly, he was already peeking into the living room, searching for you two. Emil and you had huddled around the fireplace and warmed up, sitting close enough that your shoulders were pressed against each other.

“Here we have our two troublemakers,” the man said, kneeling before you. He looked nice, and somewhat familiar, though you couldn’t tell where you had seen him before. His bottle-green eyes landed on your scraped, bloody feet, then drifted over to Emil. He frowned slightly, as though there was something he thought wrong in the picture. But that confusion quickly vanished, and he smiled again. “Look at you two, how much you’ve grown.”

The confusion must have been plain on your face, for he laughs—a deep rumble spreading from his chest through his whole body. “Obviously, you wouldn’t remember. I attended your birth. You shouldn’t cause your parents so much worry.”

“Now look at you, [Name]!” Annie whirled by like a storm. She stoked the fire, wrapped you two up in more blankets until you were small cocoons unable to move. Into the kitchen she hurried next, clattering with teacups and pots, and you could only hear her voice when she said, “You just left without saying anything and now you’re looking as if someone ran you over with a cart!”

Your shoulders flew up, your head drew back as if you were trying to hide inside your shell of warm, wool blankets. You felt Emil’s hand searching for yours under the layers, his tight squeeze when his fingers found yours, but when you looked up, his gaze was set forward at something behind the doctor’s shoulder.

When Anne returned, she pushed a steaming cup of tea into the man’s hands, which he accepted, a little baffled. Somehow he must have known her well enough to know it wasn’t wise to decline. When she turned to you next, you saw her eyes blinking rapidly against the sheen of tears. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t look into your mother’s eyes. Can you even imagine what could have gone wrong?”

To your surprise, the doctor chuckled quietly. He quickly hid his smile by taking a sip, then cleared his throat. “My own boy is a little rascal, you know?” When he saw the glare Anne sent his way, he quickly continued, “Let me take a look. I’ll take care of them.”

“Emil first,” you insisted, unwrapping the layers of blanket from your small body. “He’s hurt worse than I am.”

“Leave [Name] to me, I’m sure I can patch her up nicely,” Anne said. The doctor nodded, and moved to scoop up Emil, who refused to let go of your hand for the fracture of a second before he wound his arms around the doctor’s shoulder.

When they had almost reached the flight of stairs leading up to his room, Emil squirmed around in the older man’s arms and smiled. “Silly,” he said. “You’re not supposed to see this.”

You had not noticed how you had stood to follow them, but now you halted, confused. Maybe he didn’t want you to see him cry as the doctor would set his bone, or however procedure like this worked, which was silly. You had already seen him with eyes red-rimmed from tears and snot running down his nose after cutting onions for supper. Maybe boys thought about it differently. Maybe tears that came from pain or sadness were different.

You held Emil’s gaze, when suddenly, it shifted. Or did it? There was an urge, like an itch you had to scratch, driving you insane, and quickly, you threw a glance over your shoulder. But there was nothing out of order—and then, a second later, Emil said, “[Name], you’ll wait for me, right?”

He was still looking at you, which meant you really did just imagine things. “Of course.” You didn’t hesitate with your answer. “I’ll be right here.”

He nodded, satisfied, and didn’t break your gaze as the doctor carried him upstairs, James right on their heels.

Your head craned as they rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, but you didn’t miss how Emil wiggled his healthy foot at you, meant as a wave. You couldn’t help but smile.

“What are we going to do with you two?” The sigh from Anne’s lips was heavy, but when she cast her eyes down at you, they were warm and generous. “You really like him, don’t you?”

What a silly question. The skin at your feet would not be torn open if you did not.

You threw your arms around her as she picked you up, carrying you into the kitchen. Your nose buried in the hair that curled around the nape of her neck, you inhaled. She smelled like Emil. “He’s my most favourite person in the whole world,” you whispered against her warm skin, and this time, she sighed in content like no one but her understood exactly what you meant.

Mizpah.

You’d learn only much later that what it actually meant was good-bye without saying good-bye.

❀❀❀

Your eyelids feel as if they have been sewed shut. You imagine you can feel tearing skin as you peel them slowly open and blink for the first time in three days. Tears, collected at the corners of your eyes, pool over and run down your temples. You almost expect to see Emil as he was the day you lost him five years ago. But he is not the one who sits in the chair by this unfamiliar bed. It’s Jean, with his chin resting atop his loosely curled fist and a book splayed open on his lap. He’s wearing a loose, but warm standard uniform, and his eyes are closed.

“Jeanie?” Your throat is ravaged, and his name comes out broken.

Jean jerks awake and releases a long breath as he studies you. “It’s okay,” he says softly, reaching forward to rest a hand on top of yours. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here.” He’s here.

You nod against the thickness of your tears clogging your throat.

“Shit. It’s still hurting that bad, is it?”

You raise your uninjured arm and drape it across your eyes, sucking in a deep breath. Your other arm lies resting beside you, bandaged and numb from whatever tincture they gave you to lessen the pain, but you can’t find the words to explain that the hurt from losing Emil cannot be healed by anything. “Yeah…,” you mumble instead. “It still hurts.”

Today is another day that you miss him so much that it feels as if you’ve swallowed broken glass.

Jean squeezes your hand, then stands and brushes his clothes back into order. The creases must be from countless hours sitting in that chair, watching over you. “I’ll go and get someone,” he says. “You stay put. I mean, well—‘s not like you can go anywhere anyway.” He throws a wobbly grin at you from across the room, and opens the door but hesitates. “You called for him, you know?” he says, his broad back turned to you.

You pull away your arm and blink up at the wooden ceiling. “Emil?”

“What? No.” Jean turns, the surprise evident on his face. “Eren. You called for Eren.”

You don’t know what to say to that, so staying silent is maybe the right course of action as you’re searching for an answer yourself. Jean just ducks out into the hallway and quietly closes the door behind him.

You glance around. You’re tucked into a linen-sheeted bed, one of a long row of similar beds with wooden headboards. Your bed has a small night stand beside it with a pitcher and a cup on it. It is still filled to the brim, left untouched and waiting for you to wake up.

Taking small sips from your cup, that is how the compound’s doc finds you propped against your pillows. Behind her, you can see the familiar faces of your friends all standing in front of the the sick room as if waiting for an audience with the King himself. Seeing their worried faces loosens a tight knot underneath your chest that makes breathing a little easier. You wave in their direction, and you’re pretty sure when the doc closes the door, you can hear Mina burst out crying on the other side.

“Someone’s popular,” the doc notices and takes a seat by your bedside. She unwinds the bandage from your arm and takes a close look at the stitching—your bandages have been redone, but nobody bothered to open and redo the stitches.

“How does it look?” Your voice isn’t too parched now, but still a little raw. You take another sip from your cup, if only for something else to do than staring holes into her head.

“Your suturing skills need some work, but other than that, you’ll be fine.” From a drawer of the night stand, she produces a small wooden box. She takes a fresh roll of bandages out and begins to work on your arm. “How bad is the pain?”

“Not as bad as after the bite.” They must have given you something to dull the pain. Now it’s more like a somewhat hot itch you want to scratch. “What exactly happened?”

“I’ve only heard it in passing from the instructor, but because of the snow storm last night, they couldn’t send out search parties. Everyone had to rely that you two would make it back on your own, and well … you did.”

“That means Eren—I mean Cadet Jaeger is also here?”

“Of course. He’s the one who carried you down the mountain. I tried to get him to stay a few days in the infirmary as well, but he didn’t want to hear any of that.” A smile tugs at your lips. Of course he wouldn’t want to sit still after everything that happened. “It’s a miracle, frankly,” the doc continues as she finishes up and puts the box back. “I’m sure Inspector Shadis must be incredibly proud of you guys.”

Inspector Shadis, turns out, wasn’t just incredibly proud, he also thought that you are very stupid.

“Next time, try thinking farther than a pig shits and we won’t find ourselves in such a fucking shitshow! It’d be easier for everyone if you let the wolves eat you both and spare me the fucking headache next time! Dismissed!” Head red like a beetroot, Shadis whirls and storms out of the warehouse, leaving Eren and you standing against the wall, backs straight, and with a good amount of his spit sticking to your faces.

Eren moves first, and wipes his face with the back of his sleeve before he returns to stacking crates. You watch him for a moment, with his back to you, whenever he lifts a crate, the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt would stretch over his muscles. You remember how strong he could be, holding you in his arms, and heat crawls up your neck.

“So,” you say. “We accomplished something pretty big and still get penalty work for it. Talk about unfair.”

Eren gives a non-committal hum. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this focused moving boxes from A to B.

“And we don’t even get credits for it! I want to see Samuel or Daz survive the stuff we did.”

Another grunt. He’s started peeling splinters off the wood, as if that is the greatest safety hazard in this room. Seeing that he isn’t up for a conversation, you turn away and move to pick up some crates as well.

Eren is faster by your side than a shadow, snatching the crate from your arms. “Don’t carry heavy stuff yet,” he says.

“Oh, now you’re talking to me?”

He looks afflicted for a moment, but then his eyebrows draw together into that sulking anger you’d expect from a five year old. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and turns away to carry the crate to its destination across the room. You stick to his heels.

“Why didn’t you visit?” you ask outright, sure that Eren must have expected this question as well. You don’t want to admit how you’ve waited for him to stop by, even for a few minutes. Everyone else has managed to visit you whenever they had time off between tasks—even Armin and Mikasa. You’d tried asking them what was up with Eren, to which they just shared one long, silent glance you were familiar with simply for the fact that it was one you’d share with Jean whenever you two had words not meant for others to hear.

“He’ll come by, I’m sure,” Armin had said. Eren had not come by.

“I was busy,” he says now, still not looking at you. “And when I wanted to go, you were already out.”

You stop right behind him, staring at the curve of his neck. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Eren grumbles. “How would you know?”

“Every time you lie, your ears and neck turn red.”

He whirls around, glaring at you, but you’re right. The tips of his ears are crimson. You raise your eyebrows after you’ve made your point, to which Eren just throws his hands up and gestures around wildly. What a meaningful conversation.

Tapping your foot against the cold concrete, you grow impatient. Eren presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, and takes a deep breath. Somehow, he finds the resolve—it simply wouldn’t be Eren if he would back out of whatever weird goal he’s set out to—and finally he closes the distance between you and seizes your wrist, tugging urgently. He reminds you of a little kid trying to get his mother’s attention. But then he begins to unwrap the linen bandage from your injured arm, not meeting your eyes.

Your whole body tenses. “Uhh, Eren. Did you hit your head or something? Stop it.”

But he continues, easily shaking off your other hand trying to stop him like he’d shake off an irritating fly. He’s gone crazy. Batshit crazy. You should have left him under the pile of snow out in the woods. Each step you take back to get out of his grip, he takes one forward until your back meets a solid wall. He’s grown over the last half a year, but you know the way he looms over you isn’t because of that. His mere presence is driving you back, making you feel small.

You both stare at your jagged skin and the black thread criss-crossing your skin. The skin isn’t an angry red anymore, but turned a purplish blue. It’s not pretty. You wonder what Eren sees with his inscrutable, keen eyes. All you see is an ugly scar that will always remind you of the pain, and the day you realised the whole world is out to get you.

But also, the things that you have survived. The day you didn’t allow yourself to be prey and fought.

“You fought back.”

You blink at Eren. He said it just when you were thinking about it. “You fought back, and I was so useless and couldn’t do anything.” His eyes are still running over your scar, both calculating and caressing almost, and you realise he’s memorising the path it strikes along your arm. You know what he’s feeling—the shame of being helpless, of not doing anything. You know exactly what’s eating at him inside. “That’s why … seeing you, and being reminded how weak I was—”

“You were sick, Eren. Not much you could have done. If you were awake, I’m sure things would have turned out differently.”

“Maybe.” Eren is still holding your arm. You haven’t noticed how close you two are standing until you feel his warm breath fanning over your face now. “But that didn’t happen.”

“It didn’t. But you did manage to bring us back here. Doesn’t that count for something? You saved us as well, Eren.”

His eyes shift up, and then he’s smiling at you a little, and it is as if your chest opens up, as if your heart is trying to reach out and grab him.

“Well, you saved us first,” he says. His head is down, his green eyes looking up at you through those thick dark lashes; you wonder how many times he’s gotten whatever he wanted just by doing that. “And I’ll never forget that.”

“I guess that means we’re even.” Eren is so close now that you dropped your voice to a whisper. Any closer, and you’d be able to count each individual lash on his lids.

“So.” Eren clears his throat. A sly grin slowly spreads on his lips, giving you a bad feeling. “You think I’m hot?”

Your heart is suddenly in your throat. “I never said that.”

“Oh, really? Must have been my imagination, just like you couldn’t get your hands off me.”

Two could play in this game. You snaked your hand over the fabric of his sleeve shirt, across his broad chest. “Like this?”

Clearly surprised, Eren begins to sputter—that is until your hand snakes under this chest strap and you tug it back only to let it snap back against his chest. He doubles over, wheezing, and you finally step away from him, though it is more of an impromptu little dance as you toe around him, feeling your heart flutter inside your chest like a spring bird returning home after a long, harsh winter.

For all the anger Shadis threw into your faces, you are not surprised that by the next evaluation, Shadis put you on Rank Six.

taglist: @arisu003, @brooki, @prttyangelbaby, @honeylmnade

A/N: idk why this chapter was so hard to finish because it was still fun to write and i enjoyed giving you guys some more emil in this chapter.

#aot x reader #aot x you #aot x y/n #snk x reader #snk x y/N #snk x you #eren x reader #eren x you #eren x y/n #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #swyaatl

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